Saraswati Supercluster

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Saraswati Supercluster
Saraswati Supercluster is centred on the galaxy cluster Abell 2631, which is the most massive structure in the supercluster
Observation data (Epoch J2000.0)
Constellation(s)Pisces
Right ascension23h 37m 40s
Declination00° 16′ 17″
Number of galaxies43
Major axis200 Mpc (652 Mly)
Redshift0.28
Distance1.2 Gpc (4 Gly)
Binding mass2.0×1016 M☉
See also: Galaxy group, Galaxy cluster, List of galaxy groups and clusters

The Saraswati Supercluster is a massive galaxy supercluster about 1.2 gigaparsecs (4 billion light years) away within the Stripe 82 region of SDSS, in the direction of the constellation Pisces.[1][2] It is one of the largest structures found in the universe, with a major axis in diameter of about 200 Mpc (652 million light years). It consists of at least 43 galaxy clusters, and has the mass of 2 × 1016 M☉, forming a galaxy filament.[3]

Discovery

The Saraswati supercluster was discovered by a team of astrophysicists from the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics and Indian Institute of Science Education and Research led by Joydeep Bagchi and colleagues in Pune, India in 2017.[4]

Analyzing the data of Stripe 82 of the comprehensive Sloan Digital Sky Survey, particularly the sets of LOWZ data from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey, part of the DR12 catalogue of the SDSS, the team discovered an overdensity of the sampled 625 galaxies from LOWZ and 3,016 from the LEGACY-BOSS-SOUTHERN, a survey of the southern sky that is also a part of SDSS DR12.[5][6]

It was named after the Hindu goddess of knowledge Saraswati, as well as the mythological Sarasvati river; since the Sanskrit name also means “ever flowing stream with many pools”, and the supercluster has many clusters and groups moving and merging together.[7]

Cosmology

The Saraswati Supercluster is one of the largest and most massive superclusters known, comparable to the massive Shapley Concentration in the nearby universe. The supercluster consists of 43 massive galaxy clusters, the most massive being Abell 2631 and ZwCL 2341.1+0000 respectively. It is surrounded by a network of galaxy filaments, clusters, and voids.

The Saraswati supercluster and its environs reveal that some extreme large-scale, prominent matter density enhancements had formed in the past when dark energy had just started to dominate structure formation. This galactic concentration sheds light on the role of dark energy and cosmological initial conditions in supercluster formation.[8][9]

References

  1. ^ Bagchi, Joydeep; Sankhyayan, Shishir; Sarkar, Prakash; Raychaudhury, Somak; Jacob, Joe; Dabhade, Pratik (2017). "Saraswati: An Extremely Massive ~ 200 Megaparsec Scale Supercluster". The Astrophysical Journal. 844 (1): 25. arXiv:1707.03082. Bibcode:2017ApJ...844...25B. doi:10.3847/1538-4357/aa7949. S2CID 119360128.
  2. ^ Desikan, Shubashree (14 July 2017). "Indian astronomers discover supercluster of galaxies, name it 'Saraswati'". The Hindu. ISSN 0971-751X. Retrieved 16 December 2023.
  3. ^ Karouzos, Marios (September 2017). "Saraswati the wide-reaching". Nature Astronomy. 1 (9): 564. Bibcode:2017NatAs...1..564K. doi:10.1038/s41550-017-0227-9. S2CID 126174348.
  4. ^ (IUCAA), Inter University Centre for Astronomy & Astrophysics (14 July 2017). "Researchers describe one of the most massive large-scale structures in the universe". phys.org. Retrieved 16 December 2023.
  5. ^ ""Saraswati"- one of the most massive large-scale structures in the Universe discovered". IUCAA. Archived from the original on 29 July 2017. Retrieved 14 July 2017.
  6. ^ Bagchi, Joydeep (28 May 2019). "Saraswati Supercluster". IUCAA. Archived from the original on 11 December 2023. Retrieved 16 December 2023.
  7. ^ Venkateswaran, T V (2017-07-13). "Indian astronomers discover supermega river of galaxies, name it Saraswati". Indian Science Wire. Archived from the original on 2017-08-02.
  8. ^ Crane, Leah (14 July 2017). "Galaxy supercluster is one of the biggest things in the universe". NewScientist. Archived from the original on 8 October 2017. Retrieved 12 January 2018.
  9. ^ "'Saraswati': A Supercluster Of Galaxies Discovered By Indian Scientists". HuffingtonPost. 14 July 2017. Archived from the original on 14 July 2017. Retrieved 12 January 2018.


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